Ministry of Sound, the record label, has launched legal proceedings against
Spotify, claiming that playlists on the music service violate copyright laws.

Lohan Presencer, Ministry of Sound’s chief executive, said several playlists created by Spotify users were direct copies of his company’s dance compilation albums, and demanded that they be removed.

The two companies have been in talks in the hope of reaching common ground, but have failed to reach an agreement, and Ministry of Sound launched legal proceedings on Monday.

Spotify, the Swedish subscription-based internet music service, allows people to create playlists - collections of songs – and share them with fellow users.

Some of these playlists mirror the compilation albums sold by Ministry of Sound, and the label claims that this violates its copyrights, because a list of songs in a certain order qualifies as intellectual property.

Mr Presencer is demanding that Spotify remove playlists that mimic Ministry of Sound’s compilations, and is also seeking reparations for lost business.

Spotify's unlimited music service is a relatively new business model, meaning there is little precedent for this sort of dispute.

The incident is the latest altercation between Spotify and music industry incumbents. The five-year-old Swedish company, which charges between £4.99 and £9.99 a month for unlimited music streaming as well as running a free, advertising-supported service, has been accused of paying artists pittances by the likes of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.

“I have got a team of 10 people that work on the albums full time, we have built a reputation on a brand recognised the world over on its ability to curate playlists,” Mr Presencer said. “There’s clearly intellectual property and value in what we pull together, but [Spotify] has continued to question that.”

He said that Ministry of Sound would welcome a licensing agreement with Spotify but that the Swedish company had been unwilling to compromise.

“I’d love to have a commercial conversation with them and we have endeavoured on that for the last three or four years but they have said they don’t value what we do. It’s not a question of whether they are good for consumers it’s a question of our intellectual property,” Mr Presencer said.